Unfortunately, both technology and geopolitics have overtaken the OST. … Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means. The exploration and use of outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries, irrespective of their degree of economic or scientific development, and shall be the province of all mankind. All agreed to the principles in the OST, which states in Articles I and II: Yet the most foundational international legal document regarding space activities, 1967 Outer Space Treaty (OST), with 113 parties to it-including the United States, Russia and China-has language that appears inconsistent with such claims. President Donald Trump took it a step further with a 2020 executive order authorizing the commercial development of space resources, explicitly rejecting the notion that space is a global commons. And as if to demonstrate space was just another American frontier, former U.S. Similarly, Luxembourg, seeking to become a European hub for space mining, has enacted a law granting private firms the right to space resources, and created a space mining center. The United Arab Emirates followed suit in 2019. businesses the right to extract resources throughout the cosmos. In the United States, former President Barack Obama signed a 2015 commercial space law granting U.S. Several governments, which under current international law are responsible for their private sector’s space activities, have adopted laws permitting individual private sectors to exploit space resources. Add to that the incentive of a treasure trove of rare minerals on asteroids and the moon, larger than the depleting supply of those that exist on Earth, and outer space starts to look like a potential Wild West. The moon’s real estate itself is already potentially resource-scarce, with water concentrated at the north and south poles. NASA plans to build a permanent Moon base by 2030. China has plans to construct a nuclear-powered base on the moon by 2028. Elon Musk and other space entrepreneurs and governments want to colonize Mars. “Who owns the moon?” is no longer a rhetorical question, but rather one that goes to the heart of a governance deficit that is likely to spur interstellar confrontation. The new cold war between the United States and nations such as Russia and China is extending to the cosmos: NATO has declared space an “operational domain.” And like the old Cold War, the new one poses a threat to life on Earth itself, from the dangers of space debris to the possibility of targeting satellites in an already-crowded Low Earth Orbit ( an orbit around the Earth at 1,200 miles or less) that so much of modern life is dependent upon. But great power competition, a deficit of rules, and a booming private space economy are eroding that status. Once upon a time, outer space, like the air and seas, was one of the global commons, held jointly for all of humanity.
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